I am a crazy fool--for haircuts

So a gabillion years ago it seems, my old college roomie Laura (who is a curly headed girl just like me) sent me some links on going shampoo free and how to take care of curly locks. These links led to a deal of trial and error with products and styling ways but led me to where I am today mostly. I have a good way to get easy, wearable, nice, even curls that are relatively tamed (in the good not frizzy way not in the bad ironed into submission way).

But in all these links and research there was one name hanging above them all. Ouidad. Ouidad is the guru of curly hair. She invented a supposedly brilliant way to cut curly hair that eliminated the triangle head while still letting the curls show. Of course this haircut was expensive. Of course you could only get it in like New York, LA, San Francisco and like a handful of places that I never lived. She also had expensive product that you could get shipped to you and a fancy method of applying product called 'rake & shake' but I was too poor to risk ordering a bottle of something expensive that I had never touched and was not sure that I would even know how to use.

Then I moved to Chicago and was certain that I could find the products or the haircuts (even if I might still be too poor to get either). But nope. There was one salon out in a burb that could give a Ouidad cut. The products were available still on line. The magical Ouidad was still elusive!

Last week I went to Sephora and oh look you can buy Ouidad stuff there, nice, maybe I will try that. Then yesterday while in a fit of lull at work, I googled Ouidad, went to the main site and used the salon locator 'just in case' and lo and behold, what popped up alongside the suburb salon? A salon on the North side of Chicago, off the brown line and a stylist named Jenny who was Ouidad certified.

I was intrigued. I clicked to see how much it would cost and OH MY GOD that is a lot of monies. But not techinically more monies than I could afford, and this kind of cut was supposed to change my life and rock my world and my curls would never be the same again say the Gods of gorgeous curls. So, should I?

Hmmmmm, it is a lots of money. If I go for this, this haircut better be freaking fantastoriffic amazing, and seriously I mean A-mazing!.

So I called.

I was looking for an appointment in a few weeks, but there was an opening that very night, and I wasn't busy, and I need something to fill my time other than watching episode after episode after episode of Bones on Netflix on demand. Okay, yes sure I will be there tonight.

And I spent the afternoon wondering if all this money for 'beauty' would be worth it.

It took two hours of salon time (because I added a deep conditioning treatment) for a wash, a deep treatment time under dryer, a rinse, the cut, applying all the product, pinning things away from my head to sit me under the dryer some more AND then (finally) diffusing and adding a tiny bit of pomade to finish off.

And the verdict, the final moment: Possibly the best my hair has ever looked my entire life. I looked like a freaking salon commercial with bouncy, well-defined, smooth, shiny locks that sat up and away from my head and seemed full of life!

Then I walked out into the night which was one of those Chicago nights we get in the spring and the fall where we have a light fog that is almost more of a pervasive mist than anything else. So of course it frizzed up a bit and fell down a bit, but it still looked pretty good at home in the bathroom when I took
this picture (the face look is because I was having a real time getting things to focus and get my whole head in the picture).

So far, success I think. I mean the real test will be later this week when I do my hair myself with my own product and an air dry instead of salon grade everything. I mean it was by far the best head of hair I have ever had, now whether is was a really spendy 20 minutes of great hair or a whole new way of my head living, is still to be seen.